ABSTRACT
One of the most active debates in Paleolithic archaeology today focuses on the relationship between Neanderthals and anatomically modern Homo sapiens (AMHs). Issues of Neanderthals, biological relationship to modern humans and the relative cognitive and adaptative abilities of the two species remain unresolved (d’Errico et al. 1998; Stringer and Andrews 1988; Wolpoff 1989). The Levant plays a central role in this debate because it was the corridor through which AMHs expanded out of Africa and an area where Neanderthals and AMHs may have coexisted for over 50,000 years of the Middle Paleolithic (MP), that is, between ca. 120,000 and 60,000 BP (Bar-Yosef 2000; Hovers 2006; Shea 2006). Archaeological coverage of the ‘Levantine Crossroad’ for this period is uneven. Israel has been extensively studied since the early 20th century, and has yielded numerous habitation sites as well as both Neanderthal and early AMHs fossils, but research on this period in Jordan is much less complete (Henry 2003).
